


all that we've amassed

by scribblscrabbl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Implied Drug Use, brotherly feels abound, violin fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 09:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblscrabbl/pseuds/scribblscrabbl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock copes with the loss of his violin. Mycroft shows that he cares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all that we've amassed

**Author's Note:**

> I was aghast at the lack of violin-centric fics so I set out to help remedy that, and find an outlet for all my Holmes brothers feels (and they are out of control, lemme tell you). This is set between The Great Game and Scandal. It also became my take on how Sherlock Holmes comes to own a Stradivarius. Not Brit-picked, though I tried my best to weed out any Americanisms, so please point anything out that's terribly un-British.

_Best get back quick. There’s been a break in._

_Mrs. Hudson?_

_Fine. Was out getting biscuits. Flat’s a mess though._

It’s not hard to imagine they’re making their share of enemies, particularly of the criminal variety; Moriarty really did his part to put that into perspective. In fact, John thinks they’ve been quite lucky in the grand scheme of things, seeing as they’re not dead yet, but it still feels a bit surreal. He’s been shot at loads of times, sure, and nearly blown up twice, but that was Afghanistan. No one had a personal vendetta; he barely knew what they were fighting for in the end. Now here he is, back home in London and a primary target of the criminal underground.

He picks his way through the books and knick knacks strewn over the floor, a broken lamp, a sad-looking chair reduced to half its legs. Mrs. Hudson leans against the door frame tutting, with a hand against her cheek.

“A terrible, terrible business. I hope nothing was stolen. Sherlock hates it when people touch his things, he’ll be in such a fit when he sees this.”

His laptop had been swept onto the floor but he logs in without a problem and only finds a minor scrape when he turns it over. Not that there’s anything on it for him to lose, no pictures of sentimental value or top-secret files. He sets it back on the desk and walks towards the fireplace, stopping in his tracks to gag a bit when he gets a strong whiff of the formaldehyde Sherlock insists on storing in unfortunate places. Mainly unfortunate for him when he finds it in his favorite coffee mug. 

Then he takes one more step and sees it.

“Oh, God.”

*

By the time Sherlock gets back, they’ve already tidied up most of the wreckage, dumping irreparable items into the bin and returning the rest to their proper places.

“Where have you been? I texted you an hour ago.” John’s shoulder is starting to ache and all he wants is a proper soak in the bath, but he reins in his irritation. 

“Stopped by the morgue, Molly left me a few toys—perfectly dissected, she really does have a way with dead things—popped by Lestrade’s, solved a case—uninspiring double homicide, nothing to blog about.” Sherlock flings himself into John’s chair and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Where have _you_ been?”

“Here!” John shouts and then takes a deep breath. He hasn’t felt the need to throttle his flatmate in over 24 hours so he supposes it’s overdue. “I’ve been here since I texted you. _There’s been a break in. Flat’s a mess_. Remember that text?”

Sherlock takes a calm look around. “It looks perfectly fine to me. That lamp should be a bit further to the left, though.”

“Nothing’s been stolen, not much damage either, except—” John pauses before bending over to pick up the case, hands gentle although it’s beyond saving. “Sherlock. Your violin.”

Sherlock looks at the mangled carcass, splintered wood, torn strings, snapped bow. The state of it leaves little doubt in John’s mind that the perpetrator took perverse pleasure in utterly destroying something Sherlock Holmes holds dear. 

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get out.” Sherlock’s eyes are fixed on the open window. His hand hovers, directing John to the doorway. “Please.”

“All right, okay. I’ll be downstairs.” 

He sets the case down on the floor at Sherlock’s feet and leaves. When he reaches the foyer, he phones Mycroft.

“You should probably come over.”

*

If Mycroft were to say Sherlock is fine, then he’d be lying. So he tells John to keep him busy, distracted, to watch out for behavior that might be cause for alarm, though he doesn’t specify what sort. He doesn’t pay Sherlock a visit because the reality is that his brother is a lower priority than the security of the free world. But if he were to say it was only a violin, then he’d also be lying. 

Sherlock’s not a demonstrative person, nor would he ever willingly admit to falling prey to sentimentality. He’s always been good at hiding himself from the world, a skill he cultivated at a young age, when he hadn’t yet given his monsters a name. But Mycroft isn’t the world. Mycroft would take one look at Sherlock and know, and perhaps that alone is enough to keep him away.

*

John waits for the other shoe to drop with bated breath. To all intents and purposes, it’s business as usual. They solve a few cases, Sherlock antagonizes Scotland Yard, John blogs, and Mrs. Hudson brings them tea and biscuits. Sherlock’s conversational skills are no more terrifying and his deductions no less astounding. But it’s when he retreats to think, body stretched out and still on the sofa, that John senses an instability, an agony in the silence. And what scares John is the possibility, the probability, the near certainty that the biggest danger to Sherlock is, in fact, himself. That he has a piss poor excuse for an older brother doesn’t help in the least.

“Such a shame, he used to play for hours sometimes. That was before you came along, of course.” John’s just sat down in Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen with his cuppa, ears alert to any noise from upstairs. “He doesn’t show it but he misses it. Bit like my best friend Margaret when her cat died. She’d gone on a while like nothing happened, and then one day we were walking down the street and she just burst into tears. So sad.”

“Yes, well, the crying bit doesn’t sound much like Sherlock.” John could handle crying, though; he’s seen plenty of grown men cry, in pain, in grief, in fear. At worst it would serve as evidence that Sherlock’s more human than machine, a diagnosis John struggles with some days more than others.

“Everyone needs a good cry now and then. To leave it all bottled up like that,” Mrs. Hudson shakes her head, “I really should have a word with his mother.”

“You don’t think he’ll do anything—stupid, do you?”

“I looked through his bedroom when the two of you were out yesterday. Mycroft seemed worried.”

John’s got his teacup midway to his mouth.

“Sorry? Mycroft told you to look through Sherlock’s bedroom? For what exactly?”

She stares at him like he’s being daft. “Drugs, of course. What else?”

“Drugs.” 

“Cocaine, mostly. I tried the stuff once when I was younger. Didn’t take to it.”

“Cocaine. Mostly.” That bastard. John knows about the smoking, but not about this. He’s not sure if he’s more furious or more baffled at how it is that a person could simultaneously push the bounds of human brilliance and human stupidity. And then there’s Mycroft, who apparently still doesn’t trust him completely even though he’s given him every reason to.

“Oh! Did you not know? Oh, dear, I didn’t mean—he’s been off it for a good while now. It’s just that he has his danger nights, that’s what Mycroft calls them. You can never be too careful, you know how Sherlock is.” She looks both resigned and determined, hands clasped tightly in her lap, and John softens a bit.

“Yea. Yea, I know how he is.” And instead of phoning Mycroft and exacerbating his Sherlock-induced neurosis, he finishes his tea.

*

It wasn’t a Guarneri or a Stradivarius. Its monetary value was unremarkable and its craftsmanship adequate. He had dropped it once, shortly after it came into his possession at the age of seven, and chipped the edge near the chinrest. Its finish had become increasingly lackluster over the years; _well-loved_ would be the appropriate euphemism. He’d changed the strings less diligently than he should have, but took a singular sort of pleasure in it when he remembered to, in the bareness of the fingerboard, the bite of each string against his fingers, the sweetness of their tension, and in the sublime transformation of sound that held nothing short of the world’s salvation. 

Lacking the patience and discipline required to take on a tutor, he had taught himself, and it became the one talent of which he had sole ownership. As it turned out, Mycroft had been endowed with every gift but one. It was when he played that his brother felt no compulsion to speak, and instead accompanied him in silence, with a book or sometimes with nothing at all. A temporary cessation of hostilities.

Every piece he played he preserved in his mind palace in a single room, bright and bare, adorned only with music. Reams upon reams of it stacked precariously high in structured chaos. It was his safe room, to which he retreated when the world proved too loud and too dissonant to be inhabitable. He would sit in the middle of it, violin in hand, and compose his own private universe, surrendering to the fantastical sorts of notions his brother made a point of discouraging.

It’s a single room that has a single door, and he’s only ever locked it once.

*

John’s at the shop picking up eggs and milk when he gets the text.

_Meet at the morgue. Lestrade has a body for us._

He might’ve actually jumped for joy if he’d been in an empty aisle. Not that he shares, or will ever share, Sherlock’s indecent enthusiasm for murder and mayhem, but it’s become increasingly apparent that Sherlock isn’t handling the last week’s incident as well as he wants to believe.

John’s the first to arrive, which never happens and makes him frown a bit before he sees the victim.

“Julia Stoner. Found dead in her bed, no marks anywhere on her body, just these bizarre, red speckles.” Greg runs a hand through his hair, looking more exhausted than usual and in bad need of a homicide-free holiday. “Where’s Sherlock? It’s the first case I’ve brought to him in weeks. I’m frankly shocked he hasn’t already barged in with silver bells and trumpets.”

As if on cue, the door bursts open to reveal the man in question.

“Lovely day for a murder, isn’t it? Not that any other day wouldn’t be equally as lovely, but today! Today feels special, today feels,” Sherlock swings his arms in a wide arc and John has to step back to avoid getting hit in the face, “ _scintillating_.”

“Are you high?” Greg’s half-joking, but John has an inkling.

He takes a step closer. “Jesus. _Jesus_ , Sherlock, you’re high.”

“Oh, yes, high as a kite,” Sherlock says in all seriousness before grinning maniacally and bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Dilated pupils, elevated mood, exuberant speech. Very good, Dr. Watson.”

“Get out,” Greg orders, pointing to the door with an authoritative finger. “Sherlock, get out. Now.”

“What for?”

“We’ve been through this before. Get out and I won’t make you pee in a jar.”

“Oh, fine. Dull, dull, dull, everyone’s so bloody _dull_ ,” Sherlock says, making sure to get in the last word before he storms out of the room, greatcoat swirling dramatically.

“You’ve been through this before.” John grips the edge of the drawer holding Julia Stoner and takes deep breaths. 

Greg suddenly looks a bit awkward and rubs the back of his neck. “A long time ago. I thought he’d finally sworn off it, turned over a new leaf.”

John supposes they’ve all got things to answer for, skeletons rattling in their closets, but that doesn’t make Sherlock bloody Holmes any less infuriating.

“Did something happen? Between you two?”

John frowns. “No, why would you even think—never mind. Someone broke into the flat last week and smashed up a few things. One of those things happened to be his violin. It was literally in pieces.”

“Shit.”

“Pretty much sums it up, yea.”

He tells himself he couldn’t have possibly seen it coming, that even if he had, Sherlock would’ve found a way to get what he wanted, he always does. But he feels like shit anyway, wondering how it is, after all these years of being in the business of saving lives, that he still manages to fuck things up.

“It’s not your fault.” He forgets that Greg is always so bloody perceptive. “He doesn’t make it easy. You just have to learn as you go, and accept that sometimes, most of the time, you’ll get it wrong.”

John cracks a smile at that, thinking it’s a good thing, then, that he’s never made a habit of settling for easy.

*

Mycroft straightens the knocker before he knocks, knowing full well that Sherlock uses it to irk him at every opportunity. He never did stop keeping score, even after they went their separate ways. A running tally of all the hurts inflicted and battles won, however small and inconsequential.

John opens the door. “I took care of the drugs. He’s in a sulk now. Hasn’t eaten anything all day.”

“Some things never change.” Mycroft steps inside, smile tight at the corners of his mouth. “Although, under the circumstances, I’m surprised it took him this long to fall back into old habits.”

John regards him with open irritation as they make their way to the stairs. “If you knew this would happen, why didn’t you do something to keep it from happening?”

“I didn’t know. I never _know_. And I assure you, I would happily place him under house arrest if I didn’t know for a fact that he takes particular satisfaction in flouting my authority.”

“You could’ve, I dunno, _talked_ to him or something.” 

“Talked?” Mycroft raises his eyebrows and modulates his tone just _so_ , and John shuts up.

The upstairs is cloaked entirely in darkness, curtains drawn, lamps switched off, as if Sherlock couldn’t emphasize his suffering enough.

“It’s been quite some time since your last slip up, brother dear. Mummy won’t be pleased.”

Sherlock’s stretched out on the sofa, eyes closed, limbs perfectly still. “What’s Mycroft doing here? Tell him to go away.”

“The Detective Inspector’s become much too tolerant of your transgressions.” Mycroft takes a seat in John’s chair and crosses his legs. “I’ll have to remind him to deal with them accordingly, lest his own job performance come under scrutiny.”

“Idle threats. Surely you have something better to do. A regime to overthrow? An election to rig?”

“Don’t be a child, Sherlock. Sit up and look at me when I’m talking to you,” he instructs, with more bite than he intended. His anger isn’t directed solely at Sherlock; he admits he’s been so preoccupied the past few days that he lost track of his brother, something he hasn’t let happen in five years. Five years ago he had to be reminded that a man could be entirely justified in giving up on the world, but never in giving up on family.

John walks over to the windows and flings open the curtains, sun glare falling onto Sherlock’s face so he has no choice but to do what Mycroft says.

“Well?” He dumps himself unceremoniously into the chair opposite Mycroft and stares purposefully. “I’m looking at you.”

Mycroft studies his brother’s eyes, his brow, and the shape of his mouth. To anyone else he might look perfectly composed, but to Mycroft he looks haunted, hounded by memories he doesn’t have the heart to bury just yet, so he’s let them hound. He never did deal well with loss.

“Did you file a report with Scotland Yard?”

“No. What for? No one was harmed and I lost nothing of value.”

John throws Mycroft a pointed look before walking past them to the kitchen.

“I see you haven’t replaced it yet.”

“Replaced what? Oh, my violin. I was thinking I’d branch out. Something non-traditional. I’ve discovered quite a few marvelously innovative ones on YouTube.”

“Not quite done acting out, are we? Find a more productive outlet, then. Non-traditional doesn’t suit you,” Mycroft says, mouth curling in distaste. 

“Your musical preferences have always been so boring.” Sherlock flicks a few dismissive fingers through the air. “There’s nothing _revolutionary_ about German Romanticism.”

“You’re much too apathetic to start a revolution.”

Sherlock stares for a moment, eyes sharp and entirely sober. 

“You put the entire country on hold when you so much as break for afternoon tea. Why have you come, Mycroft.”

He’s of the opinion that regret is a wasteful sentiment and about as dangerous as love, but he long resigned himself to the fact that, however staunch the mind, the heart will do what it wants. And what it wants, more than he can provide, is for Sherlock to understand he cares, enough that if they ever found themselves on opposing sides, he’d be at a distinct disadvantage.

“I suppose I had nothing better to do.”

*

The drugs were only a distraction, an experiment to see how his body would cope after an extended period of abstinence. The euphoria was a perk. John’s reaction, however, he had not anticipated. Anger, betrayal, guilt. Then he remembered John’s sister, a recovering, relapsing alcoholic, and he’d felt a twinge of remorse, resolving to make it up to John, because that’s what people do, he imagines. Two days later, he remembers he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

He’s rummaging his pockets for his wallet when John walks through the doorway carrying a nondescript, oblong package. 

“This just came for you. Maybe we should phone the bomb squad and have them take a look first.”

Sherlock walks briskly to the window and narrows his eyes at the empty street.

“We live on the first floor and have no security to speak of. There are quicker, and cleverer, ways to blow us up.”

“If you say so.” John looks skeptical as he hands it over. “But in case it is a bomb and we get blown up, I’ll take the opportunity now to say I told you so.”

Sherlock hefts the box and rotates it once, inspecting for markings, before opening it to reveal a case, padded so securely he calculates it would’ve survived a two storey fall without a scratch. The violin inside is fitted with equal care.

“Well. It’s not a bomb.”

Sherlock realizes he’s been cutting off his oxygen supply. “Apparently.”

It’s magnificent. Rich, autumnal gold, gleaming ebony, warm, muted rosewood, comprising a sight that makes him reevaluate the extent to which beauty could be wrought by human hands. Then he runs a finger along the strings and plucks, and thinks he could already weep at the sound.

John leans in and extracts a piece of paper from under the neck. “It’s a note. _A replacement. I’d take care to make sure this one lasts. MH._ Mycroft? Mycroft bought you a violin?”

“A sound deduction.” Sherlock picks it up and examines the ribs. “Although, _bought_ should probably be used very loosely. My brother is prone to extravagance, but he certainly can’t afford a Stradivarius.”

“Oh my god. You’re holding—no, you _own_ a three hundred year old violin. You’re sure? Right, of course you’re sure.” John laughs in disbelief. “This is outrageous. It must be worth—”

“6.1 million pounds. It was on auction two days ago. Either Mycroft’s done something unspeakably criminal, or someone very important has just found a way to clear his debts.” Sherlock glances at the case again and sees a single sheet of music lining the bottom, inviting him to play. German Romanticism. 

John’s saying something but he’s already retreated deep into his mind palace, hand poised to turn the key to the sounds that call him home.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, [this is the Strad I had in mind.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molitor_Stradivarius)


End file.
